when i close my eyes i travel
when i go to sleep at night
i go on great adventures
when i awake in the morning
with open eyes, no matter
where I am or what I am doing
I stay — enclosed — kept away.
when I saw
emily dickenson
I told her that
her poems
she left behind
had become quite famous.
Poems? she said to me,
i left no poems,
yes you did i told her,
after you died
your younger sister
found a box of poems
hidden under your bed,
oh, those were not poems
she said to me, those
were my experiments
with death and immortality.
Went over to the felafel place
in the Jewish quarter
on the left bank of the Seine
and ate at the small park
with the playground
and the birds
under the sun
watching the children
play with such
innocent beauty.
Why are you so happy
all the time?
The cynic asked me
Because, I said,
The universe told me
a secret
I would tell you what
it is, but you
would not believe me.
the ideal of
humanity
came up to me
and he did not
look like any
man I have
ever seen
he was perfectly
dignified
and had the air
and simplicity
of the silence
in a redwood
forest.
finally at long last
they have paved
over walden pond
and built in its place
a complex of apartments
but don’t worry
the banker said to the developer
we have erected a plaque
to thoreau and have written
a little description as to why
he was important
and what he has done
